外商直接投资和经济增长:国内金融市场作用的实证分析

大多数外商直接投资(FD I)文献都忽略了金融市场和FD I相互作用对经济增长的影响。基于此,本文运用协整分析法分析了国内金融市场在FD I和中国经济增长中的作用;结果表明,国内金融市场在FD I和中国经济增长中没有起到积极作用。     

Foreign direct investment and civil liberties: A new perspective

The conjecture that democracy discourages foreign direct investment (FDI) has been widely refuted in empirical studies. However, we find support of this view. We distinguish between civil and political liberties and propose that multinational firms tend to invest in countries with low civil but with high political liberties. We show that the negative relationship between civil liberties and FDI is hump-shaped. A threshold level of civil liberties exists, below which repression of civil liberties is associated with more FDI. The results are explained by different economic motives for FDI in different groups of countries.     

Foreign direct investment in Turkey: regional determinants

The uneven regional distribution of foreign direct investment (FDI) in Turkey poses an interesting question from the perspective of multinational firms (MNFs) and policy-makers alike. This paper focuses on the factors governing the location decisions of MNFs within Turkey with specific reference to policy implications. Using a conditional logit model, it is found that agglomeration, depth of local financial markets, human capital, and coastal access dominate location decisions for the aggregate sample of foreign investors in Turkey. This study reveals no evidence that public investment is successful in attracting MNFs to particular regions. Also importantly, the location determinants vary dramatically by broad industrial category, investment composition, and origin-country characteristics, including income category and region.     

Foreign direct investment and the euro: the first five years

This paper assesses the main influences on foreign direct investment(FDI) flows between the major economies in the first five yearsof economic and monetary union (EMU). Using previously unpublisheddata specially provided by Eurostat, it concludes that the hugewave of FDI that reached the Eurozone after EMU was largelya manifestation of the end-of-century takeover boom, a globalphenomenon of which the euro was only a subsidiary cause. Butmuch of the boom in euro economies' FDI disappears if flowsto and from the Belgium–Luxembourg Economic Union (BLEU)(dominated by transhipment via Luxembourg) are removed. On thatbasis, intra-zone FDI turns out to have been weak after EMU,both in relation to previous trends and as a share of majoreconomies' global FDI flows. However, the euro appears to havegiven a modest stimulus to inflows from other major investingeconomies, while the UK share of the latters' outflows has fallenmoderately in the post-EMU period. The policy implications arediscussed.     

Foreign direct investment and vertical integration of production by Japanese multinationals in Thailand

We test the vertical model of foreign direct investment (FDI) empirically using firm level information on Japanese multinational activity in Thailand. These data allow us to investigate the effects of both home country (Japan) and host country (Thailand) characteristics on the inter-industry pattern of FDI. For 85 manufacturing industries over the period from 1985 to 1995, we find a positive influence of industry variation in skill intensity and market size in the host country and a negative effect of transport costs on the amount of FDI. These results provide strong direct econometric evidence of vertical integration of production across the countries. Journal of Comparative Economics 32 (4) (2004) 805–821.     

Foreign direct investment and institutional reform: evidence and an application to Portugal

We examine the role of geographic, economic, and institutional factors in attracting Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in Europe, using a cross-section of inward bilateral investments. We estimate and assess the expected benefits, the required reform efforts, and the efficiency of reform options corresponding to a convergence of Portuguese institutions to EU standards. We conclude that improving home institutions is likely to have a quantitatively very significant role in attracting FDI. Geographical and market size factors also play a role. Reforms promoting the independence of financial institutions and a leaner bureaucracy, lowering political risk and corruption, and improving the investment code may significantly affect the amount of bilateral inward FDI that is targeted to Portugal.     

The mediating role of export-oriented Japanese foreign direct investment in China

Since the early 1990s, China has become the largest destination of Japanese foreign direct investment （FDI）. Observing this trend, the authors analyzed whether Japanese FDI did promote exports from China to the rest of the world, and more importantly, whether this is a strategy adopted by Japanese multinationals to penetrate not only the Chinese market but also the global market. This analysis takes into account not only the direct effects of FDI on exports, but also the indirect effects, by examining the mediating role of export oriented Japanese FDI in China from 1998 to 2007 through panel analysis. The study contributes to the conceptual framework of indirect relationship among the macroeconomic variables, FDI and exports provides some insights into the strategy of export oriented Japanese FDI in creating a win-win platform for Japan and China.     

Business investment in euro area countries: the role of institutions and debt overhang

The recovery of business investment in the euro area has been sluggish, thereby hampering aggregate demand in the short term and potential growth in the long run. While we show that business investment can be associated to cost and supply of credit, cyclical demand conditions and economic uncertainty. But we also find evidence of additional factors. We suggest that there exists a link between excess leverage and weak economic institutions on the one hand and subdued investment growth on the other hand. Moreover, in euro area countries with both larger excess leverage and weaker economic institutions, the link with business investment is found to be stronger. The link between investment and weak institutions or excess leverage highlights the importance of structural reforms aimed at easing business regulations, reducing administrative burdens and increasing the efficiency of insolvency frameworks. These reforms are thus expected to reduce distortions in the allocation of resources and be supportive of a smoother deleveraging process, hence fostering business investment.     

Agglomeration economies and location choice: Foreign direct investment in Hungary1

Since the beginning of the transition process, Hungary has attracted a significant amount of foreign direct investment (FDI), although this is unevenly distributed among the twenty Hungarian counties. This paper examines the determinants of FDI at a regional level in Hungary and more particularly assesses the importance of agglomeration effects among determinants. A panel model of the location determinants of FDI in Hungary is developed and estimated. Empirical testing suggests that counties with higher labour availability, greater industrial demand and higher manufacturing density attract more FDI. Surprisingly, higher unit labour costs attract FDI. In addition, inter‐industrial agglomeration economies and infrastructure availability are found to be important.     

利用外国直接投资与贸易条件分析

通过大量数据说明。中国FDI主要流向劳动力密集型出口部门。这种流向特征一方面导致中国出口消费品的超额供给,另一方面又带动了对资本、技术等密集型产品的进口FDI需求的增长,使中国的贸易条件趋向恶化。要改善中国的贸易条件,应当进一步加强对外资流向的引导,从根本上增加外资流向资本技术密集型部门和服务业的比重,降低流向一般制造业的比重。     

Foreign direct investment and bilateral investment treaties: An international political perspective

This paper investigates the effect of the implementation of bilateral investment treaties (BITs) on the bilateral stocks of foreign direct investment (FDI). We argue that the understanding of how BITs affect FDI requires recognizing that multinational enterprises (MNEs) are not Stateless and that their investment return may well depend on the quality of political relations between the home and host countries. Using bilateral FDI data and event data to measure political interactions between countries, we show that the effect of the entry into force of a BIT crucially depends on the quality of political relations between the signatory countries; it increases FDI more between countries with tense relationships than between friendly countries. We also find evidence that BITs and good domestic institutions are complementary. BITs should therefore be understood as a mechanism for host governments to credibly commit not to expropriate investors in the future.     

Governance and foreign direct investment: a panel gravity model approach

This paper investigates the link between governance and foreign direct investment in the case of 14 transition countries by using a panel gravity model approach in two alternative ways. First, the level of governance in the target country is studied. Second, the absolute difference in the governance level between the source and target country is investigated. In both cases the results suggest that the lack of good governance does not deter, in fact it encourages, foreign direct investment.     

How foreign direct investment promote institutional quality: Evidence from Vietnam

Using a unique dataset from a provincial competitiveness survey and the rising foreign direct investment (FDI) from joining the World Trade Organization (WTO), I find that variations in economic institutions across the provinces of Vietnam are associated with the flow of foreign investment. To overcome endogeneity problems, I use the minimum distance from each province to a main economic centre as an instrument for foreign investment inflows. The instrumental variable approach shows that the direction of influence is from greater foreign investment to better institutions. These results hold after controlling for various additional covariates, and are also robust to various alternative measures of institutions. I also find that foreign direct investment has greater short-term impacts on institutional quality in the northern provinces.     

Foreign direct investment and spillovers: gradualism may be better

Abstract.  The standard argument says that in the presence of positive spillovers foreign direct investment should be promoted and subsidized. In contrast, this paper claims that the very existence of spillovers may require temporarily restricting FDI. Our argument is based on two features of spillovers: they are limited by the economy's absorptive capacity and they take time to materialize. By letting in capital more gradually, initial investment has the time to create spillovers – and upgrade the economy's absorptive capacity – before further investment occurs. The economy converges to a steady state with a superior technology and a greater capital stock.     

Foreign direct investment and exports: a time series approach

The impact of the accelerated internationalization of the last decade on the Austrian economy is a controversial issue. Granger's concept of casuality is used to investigate one aspect of the internationalization of production: the realtionship between foreign outward direct investment and exports using aggregate flow data from the Austrian economy. The stationarity of the time series is examined and cointegration tests for the adequacy of the multivariate time series approach are performed. The estimation results suggest significant causality of Austrian foreign outward direct investment and exports in both directions. Impulse response analysis and varience decomposition show a very slow dynamic response of both variables to exogenous shocks of the other. It furthermnore indicates the possiblity of a positive effect of exogeneously increased foreign direct investment on exports and a negative effect of export shocks on foreign direct investment; however, significant long-run effects are not established.     

Foreign direct investment and governance quality in Russia

This paper studies the effect of poor governance quality on foreign direct investment in Russia. Using a survey of businesses across forty administrative districts, we find that higher frequency of using illegal payments and higher pressure from regulatory agencies, enforcement authorities, and criminals, negatively affect foreign direct investment. Our identification strategy builds on the exogenous cross-regional variation in worker strikes during 1895–1914, the period before the October Revolution. We find that moving from the average to the top governance quality across Russian regions more than doubles the FDI stock.     

Foreign direct investment and China's regional income inequality

China's widening regional income inequality coupled with its pronounced regional disparity in foreign direct investment stock since 1990 has claimed the attention of many scholars. While some researchers confirm regional disparity in China's foreign direct investment, others attribute the widening regional income inequality to this regional disparity. This paper thus assesses the impacts of China's stock of foreign direct investment on its regional income inequality using simultaneous equation model and the Shapley value regression-based decomposition approach. Our results suggest that China's stock of foreign direct investment has accounted for merely 2% of its regional income inequality. Furthermore, the contribution ratio of per capita foreign direct investment stock to China's regional income inequality has relatively been on a steady decline since 2002. The decomposition results also reveal that provincial per capita physical assets account for over 50% of the nation's income inequality and 65% of the increases in income inequality since 1990. The other two important determinants of regional income inequality are province location and educational level. However, educational level is found to have a decreasing effect on regional income inequality.     

Bank system reform and outward foreign direct investment of Chinese enterprises

Using a panel of Chinese domestic enterprises over the 2002–2008 period, we assess the effect of the state-owned commercial bank shareholding reform on the domestic enterprises' outward foreign direct investment (OFDI) decisions. We find that a modern market-oriented bank system significantly increases the likelihood of OFDI, especially for the purpose of facilitating trade and services.